July/August 2006
When they’re loading, unloading, and dumping their containers, hooklift hoist truck drivers can stay in the cab. This feature, vendors say, gives hooklifts an edge in operating efficiency and safety.
By Theodore Fischer
Over the years, the weighty task of transporting containers of scrap has undergone a mechanical evolution.
The scrap industry used to rely on load luggers, a system that raised and lowered containers in a horizontal position. Load luggers delivered the goods, but to operate them drivers usually needed to get out of the truck cab and connect four chains at four points along the top of the container, a time-consuming and sometimes hazardous procedure. Load luggers were also relatively small, with a maximum capacity of only about 20 cubic yards.
With the introduction of roll-off cable hoists some 35 years ago, drivers could more easily hook a cable to a container and pull it up onto the back of a truck. Because they could handle much larger loads—up to 30-cubic-yard open containers—cable hoists quickly became standard equipment in the scrap industry, the waste industry, and just about any other industry that needed to do heavy lifting.
Hooklift hoists were introduced in the United States in the mid-1970s, but they have only become prevalent here in the last decade. “We like to think in the [United States] that we are on the leading edge of technology,” one hooklift vendor says, “but in Europe and other parts of the world, there are no cable hoists—they have long since become extinct. Out of necessity and ingenuity, those countries are using hooklifts exclusively.”
Hooklift ABCs
In simple terms, a hooklift is a hydraulic hoist installed on a truck chassis that allows you to interchange bodies on the chassis. Two or three levers, along with a power takeoff lever to engage and disengage the hydraulics, let drivers unload, load, or change truck beds in a cycle that ideally takes about a minute. Most hooklifts also have a dump mode that transforms the apparatus into a dump truck. And most important in terms of convenience, efficiency, and safety, a driver can operate a hooklift hoist without ever leaving the cab of the truck.
Here’s how it works: The driver backs up the truck to a container and operates the hoist. Using the mirror, the driver forms kind of a triangle of himself, the mirror, and the hook as it engages the bar at the top of the container. The rearward motion of a control lever inside the cab produces a rearward motion of the hook. Once the hook grabs the bar, the driver pushes the controls to move the hook forward. As one manufacturer describes the procedure, “The hoist lifts the front of the container—and assume it’s a heavy container because it’s filled with scrap metal—and basically sucks the truck underneath the container.”
As the truck rolls underneath the container, which is halfway up in the air and usually tilted at a 24- to 26-degree angle, two or three big rollers at the very end of the hooklift system line themselves up with rails underneath the container. With the container secured to the truck chassis, the driver is ready to hit the road.
Hooklift Advantages
Versatility. Hooklift hoists are relatively simple devices that allow a single truck to do the work of many. “The reason hooklifts are catching on is that your power unit is your most costly piece,” one vendor says. “Hooklift systems will haul various sizes of containers and be whatever they need to be—a dump truck in the morning, a water truck in the afternoon, and a flatbed the next day—rather than a dedicated unit you use only once in a while.” This truck-of-all-trades capability reduces the cost of maintenance, licensing fees, and driver salaries because facilities can operate with fewer trucks.
Efficiency. With hooklift hoists, drivers can pick up and deliver loads faster. One vendor outlines a typical scenario: “You enter the customer’s yard, set down the empty container, and—since almost all customers want the containers in exactly the same place all the time—[you] pull the full one out of the way and then put the empty one back in its place. A cable roll-off [driver] has to get in and out of the truck several times during that series of operations, but a hooklift driver’s going to be in and out of there in a heartbeat.”
Greater efficiency also comes from less weight and greater maneuverability. Manufactured with higher-strength steel, hooklift hoists weigh up to 1 ton less than cable hoists with comparable capacity. Thus “hooklifts have a better strength-to-weight ratio,” one vendor explains. “If you can add a 1,000- or 2,000-pound extra load, that’s money in your pocket.”
In addition, because cable hoists have to square up to a container, hooklift hoists can connect to containers that cable hoists can’t reach. “You can approach a container from a 60-degree angle, put the hook on the front of the container, drag it around straight, and then load it,” one vendor says.
Safety. “The driver never leaves the cab” could be the mantra of the hooklift manufacturers’ industry. As well as being more productive, stay-in-cab drivers are substantially safer. Cable hoist operators have to get out of the cab, grapple with heavy cables, and pass between the truck and the container to attach the cable. Then they usually have to stand outside the truck to work the controls. “When the driver stands right next to [the] truck while the cable pulls the container on the back of [the] chassis, it’s really quite dangerous there if the cable ever snapped,” one hooklift manufacturer says, noting that scrap recyclers seem more concerned with safety than some of his other customers.
Durability. Hooklift hoists are low-maintenance enough to yield Maytag repairman-type yarns. “I just bought a 30-year-old hooklift hoist, one of the first hoists that came to Michigan,” says Jay Crouch of J&S Service, a
Kent City, Mich., scrap and rubbish company that owns six hooklifts. “It’s already been on four trucks, and I’m putting the hoist on another truck now. … As far as I know, from the guy I got it from, nothing’s ever been done to that hoist—a 30-year-old hoist still working every day.”
That’s exceptional, but one vendor figures that hooklift hoists, with an estimated life span of 12 to 15 years, should outlive two truck chassis. “You might have to replace bushings, or a seal in a cylinder, or the hook itself—
a very simple process,” he says.
Another vendor boasts, or maybe complains, that “we have sold hundreds of these in the United States and Canada over the past 20 years, but I don’t make enough money in parts to hire a parts man. They don’t wear out.”
Routine maintenance is minimal. “Just keep them greased,” says Gary Beagell of Gary’s U-Pull It (Binghamton, N.Y.). “There’s really not much maintenance to the thing.” Hooklifts typically have 12 to 18 zerk fittings that should be greased on a monthly basis.
Buying Guide
Hooklift hoists are sold according to hauling capacity, which can range from 3 tons to 34 tons. To help determine the model that’s right for you, before you approach a dealer ask yourself a few basic questions:
• What functions will the hooklift perform? How will you use it?
• What size truck chassis (wheel base, gross vehicle weight rating, and/or axle capacity) will you use?
• How much weight—including the weight of the container—will the hooklift have to pick up?
• If you are dumping material, what are the shortest and longest bodies you will dump?
• If you will use flatbeds, what is the longest flatbed body?
Your answers will help dealers match their hooklift hoists to your truck. It’s a matter of “putting together several bits of information to make sure the customer does it right the first time,” one hooklift vendor says. “We’re always concerned about [customers] carrying too much weight in too small a truck. They want to buy something as light as possible and as small as possible, but they want it to carry the world. So we counsel them: ‘Your truck does not have enough gross vehicle weight. The suspension or tires are not big enough on this unit. You don’t have enough truck for what you want to do.’”
Chris Emanouil of Enterprise Iron & Metal Co. (Grand Rapids, Mich.), which owns four 30-ton hooklifts, advises purchasers to think big. “There’s always going to be more weight than what you think is going to be there,” he says. “Go a step up from whatever you figure you’re going to use, and you’ll be in good shape.”
The vendors say scrap recyclers usually do buy at the upper end of the hooklift line: 24-ton capacity and greater models that generally range in price from $24,000 to $34,000, including installation.
Hooklift Design
All hooklift hoists will pick up a container from the ground, bring it onto the truck, and dump the load in some fashion. Beyond that, keep in mind the following design variables when you shop.
Points of Articulation. Hooklift hoists can have either one or two points of articulation, which affect the angle at which the arm of the hoist raises the container. Hoists with one point of articulation bring the container onto the truck and dump it at the same angle, usually around 25 degrees. Hoists with two points of articulation have both a pick-up mode and a steeper (45- to 55-degree) dump mode. Hoists with a single point of articulation cost less, but they make dumping more cumbersome.
Jib Design. Hooklifts have different types of jibs, the crane-like structures that grasp the container and pull it on and off the truck chassis. Articulating jibs have a hinge point that forms a 90-degree angle to pivot containers onto the truck. Today, however, most manufacturers produce hoists with telescoping, or sliding, jibs that extend or retract by 3 or 4 feet along the chassis and better retain proper weight distribution while they’re in the dump mode. Some manufacturers design jibs with an extra safety feature: body-lock mechanisms that secure the container to the truck during the dump mode.
Lift Cylinders. Hooklifts have either one or two of the hydraulic lift cylinders that raise the container off the truck chassis. Each type has its advantages. Single-cylinder models decrease the hooklift’s weight, which increases its hauling capacity and lowers its cost, vendors say. Also, a single cylinder nestles closer to the chassis, increasing the lifting height of the hooklift.
Other manufacturers say dual cylinders provide greater safety and convenience, especially in the steeper dump mode. One manufacturer makes this comparison: “When you pick up a barbell, you use both arms to get greater control—if it’s heavier on either side, it will twist on you. Dual cylinders eliminate that [problem].” Vendors note that in single-cylinder models, the cylinder is used as an actuator, not as a stabilizer. Those units derive their stability from the rear hinge pin.
No Bells, Few Whistles
Precious few accessories are available for the basic hooklift hoist. One option is a hydraulic tarp system for the container. Mounted behind the cab, the mechanism automatically stretches a tarp over the top of the container. Such systems add $6,000 to $7,000 to the base price, but they make it easier to obey the law in states that mandate covered containers, and they curtail the dangerous practice of drivers climbing on containers to unroll tarps by hand.
Another option, available only on larger (24 ton+) hoists, is a roller stabilizer, a 2-foot-wide, 8- to 10-inch roller that prevents the front of the truck from rising off the ground when the hoist loads extremely heavy containers. Popular with scrap dealers and others who handle big loads, roller stabilizers raise the price by $3,500 to $4,500 but markedly increase safety.
Other accessories include aluminum, steel, and polypropylene fenders for the various wheels; bumpers; light bars; aluminum or steel toolboxes; and pintle hitches for pulling trailers.
Future options might include hydraulic locking systems to comply with legal mandates. Such systems are already standard in Europe, where containers are I-beam-designed, like railroad tracks, and therefore easy to lock. Some current hooklifts come standard with rear-body hold-downs, with hydraulic body latches available as an option. Other existing mechanical hold-down systems can reduce the efficiency of hooklift hoists because drivers must manually run a strap through the chassis and the rails of the container, then use a bungee strap or ratchet and strap to tie down the load.
Also on the horizon are hydraulically extending bumpers to satisfy the U.S. Department of Transportation limit of 24 inches of overhang. Hydraulically extendable bumpers would keep trucks from exceeding that limit.
Cable Conversion
If hooklift hoists are so great, why aren’t they more popular? It all comes down to money. The initial price of a hooklift is somewhat higher than the price of a comparable cable roll-off, but the bigger concern is the cost of converting roll-off containers to hooklift compatibility.
The rails under a container are suitable for either type of hoist. But cable hoists hook onto containers at an indentation called a “doghouse,” which the hook-up resembles, near the bottom of the container. In contrast, hooklifts grab a small bar at the top center of an “A-frame” welded to the end of the container. Making cable-ready containers suitable for hooklifts involves welding the A-frame to the container.
One vendor estimates the cost of converting each container at about $250 for parts plus two hours of labor—and he insists it’s a good investment. “A number of scrap people indicated that they got payback on the cost of container conversion not in years, but in months,” he says.
The immediate future will most likely see peaceful coexistence between the two types of hoists. In fact, one manufacturer now produces a unit that can work as either a hooklift or a cable hoist—the driver can convert the chassis from one to the other in a few minutes while en route to the pickup. That vendor envisions strong prospects for ambidextrous systems. “Because container parks are so large, and the [roll-off] containers have been used for the 20-plus years of cables, as these containers wear out and scrap recyclers become aware of the newer technology, they will order containers with both the doghouse for cables and the A-frame for hooklifts. I don’t foresee the cable disappearing soon, but the two systems will have to live next door to each other for a while.”
Smooth Operations
Ease of maintenance and operation are major hooklift virtues—as long as the driver stays in the truck. “In order to use this equipment for full benefit, you have to have the driver in the cab at all times,” one vendor says. “The more pulls per day, the more revenue you generate, so the less time a driver is out of the cab hooking or unhooking a cable or tarping a container, the more time [the driver] has to move those containers.”
Given their versatility, durability, efficiency, and safety, could hooklifts eventually make cable hoists as obsolete in the United States as they have become in Europe? Even a vendor whose firm manufactures both hooklift and cable hoists seems to agree: “We still sell many more cable hoists because it would be expensive for some customers to convert all their containers. But hooklift hoists have many advantages, and we recommend hooklifts to new startups.”
Theodore Fischer is a writer based in Silver Spring, Md.